1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed and claimed herein generally pertains to an apparatus and method for controlling the flow of liquid coolant to a liquid flow through (LFT) heat exchanger, such as a heat exchanger used to provide cooling for one or more electronic devices. More particularly, the invention pertains to an apparatus and method of the above type, wherein a component located proximate to a heat exchanger regulates coolant flow automatically, in response to changes in coolant temperature.
2. Description of the Related Art
High performance computing systems are using ever-increasing amounts of power, at higher power densities. As a result, it has become common to meet system cooling requirements by means of LFT heat sink and heat exchange technologies. Also, semiconductor electronic devices that have very different cooling requirements from each other, because of different size or duty cycle, may be located on the same PCB assembly, or may otherwise be adjacent to each other. This situation presents a further challenge.
Conventional heat sink and heat exchange technologies have generally carried out their tasks in the static domain. That is, a heat exchanger typically cannot actively control or adjust its own cooling profile. If such active control were to be achieved, it could permit the operational function of maintaining the multiple devices which were adjacent to one another at the same temperature. Alternatively, such active control capability could permit the temperatures of different device types, such as processors, memories and voltage regulator modules, to be selectively offset from one another.